How You Get the Girl
by vulnera-sapientia
Summary: Modern AU. Inspired by Taylor Swift's How You Get the Girl. It's raining and Bellamy is once again thinking about how he ruined the best thing that ever happened to him. But it's not too late to get his girl back. Probably super cheesy, but if you love that, you'll enjoy this. One shot.


**So I was in bed last night, reading Bellarke fanfics and listening to Taylor Swift as you do, and I don't know what happened, but this is the result of some late night inspiration. If you've heard the song How You Get the Girl, you'll pick up pretty quickly how much it prompted this fic. If you have not had the pleasure, I suggest you read this first and then listen to it because you're missing out. Anyway, enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I own neither How You Get the Girl by Ms Swift, nor the characters from the 100.**

* * *

Six months... He can't believe it.

It's raining tonight, harder than its rained in weeks, and the drops cascading down his bedroom window is just one more thing that reminds him of her.

It's been six months. Six months since he last saw her, last spoke to her. Last touched her.

He's reminded that she loved the rain, loved nights like these when she was able to dim the lights and snuggle up in bed with him and just listen to the sounds that accompany wet weather; the dull thudding as sheets of water hit the roof, cars zooming through puddles on the wet road in front of their apartm-

Hers. Her apartment now. Has been since he left her.

For what feels like the hundredth time today, his mind is on her. He's still ashamed of the way he ended things. He wishes he could take back what happened, but the damage has been done. And there's no way to sugar coat it: he fucked up.

He couldn't help himself; it's how he was.

He always knew there were expiry dates to relationships, as proven by his mother and how she'd gotten her heart broken so many times, so he'd breezed through them his whole life, never being tied down. He would always do the leaving well before they could ever do it to him; he'd vowed that he would never let himself get hurt the way his mother so foolishly had, time and time again.

He'd learned that, for him, the best way of living was when you got what you wanted from someone and you moved on. That was the only way he could see to be happy.

Then he met Clarke.

He met her, and suddenly there were conversations that lasted until the early hours of the morning and late night hang outs whenever he was off duty and she wasn't working at the hospital (he learned pretty fast that Clarke didn't like horror movies, her screams left his ears ringing).

Suddenly he was surprising her with breakfast in bed, and he had a drawer filled with her stuff at the apartment he shared with Octavia, and then he was helping her pick out cushions for their lounge suite in the new apartment they moved into together (even though he knew she'd already picked them out online), and they were jokingly arguing about how many middle names their future children should have (he argued on only having one, she thought it was better having two).

And sooner or later it dawned on him that he was no longer by himself. Of course, he'd always had O, and nothing would ever separate them, but there were some things he couldn't talk about with his baby sister. And he could with Clarke. She'd be there for him when he needed to talk about his late mother, and he'd be there for her when she'd miss her late father, and they'd ended up saving each other. From what, he wasn't really sure. But he knew that they had been drawn to each other from the beginning and had now made up their own little unit, and he liked it. He trusted in what they had. And for a while he'd forgotten that relationships were supposed to have expiry dates.

But then one day he was with her and it was as if his whole world shattered around him. She was talking about how one of her friends and her boyfriend had broken up.

"I really thought they were going to make it," she said absentmindedly as she stood from the table.

"No relationship lasts forever," he had mumbled without thinking, and as soon as he'd said it, he regretted it. He'd immediately looked at Clarke, but she hadn't heard him. She was humming to herself as she went into the kitchen. But it didn't matter; the words had come out, and he'd panicked. A few weeks later and he was packing his clothes into his car and coming back to live with his sister.

The rain only gets harder, but Bellamy is lost in his thoughts, no longer thinking about the weather outside.

She had been doing long hours at the hospital and hadn't seen him as much as usual, so when she came home one morning after work to find him carrying boxes to his car, she'd been speechless. But he knew that if he didn't do it now, it would just be worse later on.

"I can't do this anymore," he'd said to her quietly, not quite meeting her eyes.

"Did I do something..." she started, tears already starting to fall.

He'd just sighed. "Don't... Please. I just need to... I'm going to move back in with O, but I'll keep up the rent payments or whatever. I'm sorry, Clarke."

He'd turned around to leave, but went back and grabbed her face in his hands, pressing his lips softly to hers. She'd immediately kissed him back. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, trying to keep him there with her, but he'd eventually pulled away and gotten in his car, using all his self control not to look back at her as he drove away.

A light thud pulls Bellamy from his thoughts. He listens out for anything else, but it's only the rain he can hear once more. His eyes glance over at the drawer in his room that used to house Clarke's things, and he deliberates opening it for the first time in a while. No matter how much he's thought of her since he moved back, he's always managed to keep it shut. Tonight, however, it seems he feels like making his depressing mood worse, because before he really knows what he's doing, he's standing up from his couch and walking over to his dresser.

He opens the drawer and immediately finds an old college jersey that is actually his, but that she liked to live in whenever she stayed here. He finds a couple of her jersies, a pair of track pants. Then he finds a photo of the two of them in the park not far from their - her - apartment. She's got a grin on her face and her eyes are closed, and he's kissing her on the cheek. He's surprised to find that he remembers that day. They'd been together about two years. They decided to go for a drive across town, and stopped to take a walk through a park. They had continued down the side streets next to it, eventually stumbling upon an apartment that was available for rent. They'd signed a week later.

Bellamy's heart feels like it's breaking all over again, but before he can really feel sorry for himself, his bedroom door opens and his sister strolls in. She's saturated, and she shakes her long hair out, droplets of water falling.

"It is intense out there," she announces, grinning. When she sees what her brother has in his hand, her grin fades.

"Bell," she says gently, her eyebrows knitting together.

Bellamy clears his throat and looks away. "I was going to... clean this out."

"You don't need to lie to me," Octavia replies with a small smile. "I'm not judging you for being in love."

Bellamy shakes his head, glaring at her. "In case you don't remember, I broke up with her. I'm not-"

"We both know why you broke up with her, Bellamy," Octavia interrupts while taking her jacket off. "Don't even bother trying to convince me this isn't because of mom."

Bellamy opens his mouth to argue but he already knows it's pointless, Octavia is stubborn when it comes to matters of the heart - and their mother.

"Why are you being so stupid?" She whines suddenly, catching him a little off guard. "I can't believe you've kept this up for so long. I thought you'd come to your senses on your own, but it seems you need a little push, so here we go. You are not mom, okay? What happened to her is not going happen to you. You are not her. You're stronger than she was, and unlike her, you managed to find a good thing with Clarke. For the first time, you actually believed in a relationship, you believed in love, and that's who you are; you believe, Bellamy. And I'm reminding you of that, because you and Clarke belong together and you need to get her back."

This entire statement catches him off guard. Sure, they've talked about his relationship, but Octavia was friends with Clarke before he got into a relationship with her. Octavia has, up to this moment, kept her feelings on the matter to herself, at the risk of sounding biased towards either one of them.

"O, I - you don't know what you're talking about," he eventually tells her, though it's without harshness. "Our relationship ran its course. I just saw that before... Before she did." He's not entirely surprised to find he can't speak her name; after all, it's been months since he's talked about her aloud.

"You can't even say her name without getting choked up!" She argues, noticing his hesitation. "That just proves you're still in love with her. And your relationship ran its course? That is complete bullshit. I still hang out with Clarke, you know, almost every other day."

Bellamy's head snaps up at her. He had no idea she saw her so often.

"She's... sad, Bell," Octavia says softly. "She's miserable without you. And you might not see it, but you're miserable without her too."

Bellamy scoffs at that, but even to his ears it sounds forced.

"I watched you go through more girlfriends than I could count," Octavia continues, chuckling. "And I never said anything, but I thought that something might be wrong with you. The way you just, I don't know, went through the motions. You weren't happy, I could see it. But then you met Clarke and sparks were flying and I thought wow, all you needed was the right girl. You'd been waiting for Clarke, and you were so happy! I couldn't believe it, but you were finally happy."

He can't look at his sister at this point, so he's just staring at the ground. Hearing her speak like this is hurting him, more than he'd like to admit, but he's afraid that if he tries to talk his voice will betray him and she'll know she's right. Octavia must take his silence as encouragement, because apparently she isn't finished.

"I don't know what happened for you to change so suddenly, for you to revert back to this guy who so clearly isn't you, to go so far as to break up with the only girl you ever loved, but I'm telling you to fix it, as soon as you can. You've both suffered enough."

Bellamy looks at Octavia and is surprised. He never knew how strongly she felt about his relationship with Clarke. Unfortunately, her speech, though moving, has just made him feel more like shit. And looking into her eyes, he can see that she's holding on for something that probably could never happen.

"O, even if I wanted to fix things with me and Clarke..." he sighs again and rubbed a hand through his hair. "I really fucked up. I didn't even give her a reason for leaving. I was just... Gone. She would never understand why I was such an asshole - and I don't expect her to forgive me any time soon."

He looks down at the photo in his hand. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have been such a fool to ruin the best thing, besides his sister, to come into his life? He let his past worries haunt him to the point where he lost the love of his life, all because he was scared that she would eventually leave him. It was idiotic and selfish. If only he'd realised this before he let something so petty as an irrational fear get in the way of him and Clarke.

"It's not too late," Octavia says excitedly. "You can still fix this."

Bellamy looks at her uncertainly. "O, you didn't see the look on her face when I left her that day. She probably hates me."

Octavia shakes her head. "She doesn't hate you, she loves you! After six months apart, you're both still as crazy in love with each other as ever. Trust me."

Bellamy shakes his head this time. "You couldn't possibly know how-"

"Look," Octavia interrupts again. "I did a bit of snooping a while back in Clarke's room. Do you know what I found in her top drawer?"

Bellamy raises an eyebrow. "You went through her stuff?" Octavia doesn't look impressed with his tone, so Bellamy presses on. "Fine, what did you find? A voodoo doll with my face on it?"

Octavia rolls her eyes. "Do you remember that shirt you got at college? The one you couldn't seem to find a couple months back? You used to wear it non-stop."

"Sure," Bellamy answers automatically, and then begins to understand where she's going with this. "She... She has it? She kept it?"

"She kept it," Octavia says quietly, a smile on her face.

Bellamy looks at the photo once more.

"Where is she?" He asks suddenly. "Right now?"

Octavia's eyes widen. "She's got the night off, so she'll be at home... why?"

Bellamy smiles, the first genuine one in a while. "I need to get to our apartment."

Octavia grins, but it soon disappears. "Wait, how will you get there? The rain is causing floods, I had to take the train home because most of the roads are closed."

Bellamy thinks it over. The apartment was about eight blocks away. It wouldn't be a problem driving, but walking? It would be a while. And in this weather...

He shrugs. "It's just a little rain, right? And I need to see her."

He tucks the photo into his jeans pocket and nods to himself.

"Tonight."

* * *

It takes him longer than he anticipated to reach the apartment, what with the weather being so uncooperative, so when he's standing at the front door his teeth are chattering so hard he thinks he might lose them. The rain has eased off by this point, but his clothes are absolutely saturated and his usually curly hair is straight and flattened to his forehead. He impatiently brushes it out of his eyes and stares at the door of the home he hasn't stepped in since the day he took off.

Suddenly he's wracked with nerves. Maybe he shouldn't be here. Maybe Octavia was wrong and Clarke wasn't miserable at all, maybe she had moved on.

He shakes his head. He's finally here, finally ready to try again, and he needs to know if Clarke still loves him. Before he can talk himself out of it, he steps forward and knocks loudly on the door. A few seconds later it opens.

As soon as she sees him she gasps, but Bellamy is too busy looking at her to offer some kind of explanation right away.

Her golden hair is tied back in a loose braid, and she's wearing her blue sweater that he's always loved because it makes her eyes stand out. Right now they definitely stand out. They're wide open, taking him in.

They simply stare at each other a few moments more, until Clarke breaks the silence.

"Are you insane?!" She demands, crossing her arms in front of her. "Did you walk all the way here? It's freezing!"

"I'm - I'm sorry, Clarke," he starts, but he's shivering now and it's causing him to stutter. He silently curses their doorway for not having any shelter.

Clarke furrows her eyebrows. "Sorry? What are you - God, you're pale as a ghost, get out of the rain-"

"No," he says, because he knows that if he stops now, he'll never get it out.

"I don't know what the h-hell I was thinking. I-I never should have l-left you."

Again, Clarke's eyes widen, but she doesn't say anything so Bellamy continues.

"It's been a really long s-six months, Clarke, and I've been m-miserable every day since I left."

She's staring at him in shock, but he keeps speaking.

"I must've lost my m-mind when I thought it was better for us both if I left you. And I didn't even t-tell you why I left, and I don't even have a good explanation. All I can say now is that I was s-scared you'd come to your senses and l-leave me, and I panicked and I'm s-so sorry, but I'm still in l-love with you. I love you."

Clarke stands there in the doorway, frozen. He can see that there are tears threatening to fall.

"Clarke, I-I..." He sighs and pulls the photo of them out of his pocket. He looks down at it, watches as raindrops hit it for a couple of seconds, and then back up at her. He sees that she recognises it when a pained look crosses her face, but she still doesn't say a word to him.

"I-I found this tonight and everything just h-hit me. I should've told you h-how I felt, should've b-been honest with you. Well, I'm making up for it n-now. I love you, I n-never stopped loving you, and I'll love you until the end of freaking time. And if you c-can't forgive me tonight for how I've been, just know that I'll k-keep trying. I'll wait forever if I h-have to."

As Bellamy shakily puts the photo back in his pocket, he secretly thanks his lucky stars that it's raining, because he's usually not the crying type, but right now there are tears forming. He stares at her, watches her for some kind of sign.

She sniffs, looking at the ground. "You broke my heart, Bellamy."

It crushes him to hear her say that, but he can't give up. Not now.

"I-If you give me the chance, I'd like to f-fix it for you," he replies, and he knows it sounds cheesy, and he knows he's been babbling like an idiot this entire time, but he needs her to know that he wants to make this right.

She's looking at him again, and he watches her eyes as they scan his face, watching for something. He doesn't move closer to her; he's tempted to, but he can't just yet. Not until he knows where they stand.

"I p-promise you, Clarke, I'll never leave you like th-that again. I want to spend the r-rest of my life with you, and I need you to know how s-sorry I am for-"

Whatever else he plans on saying is lost when Clarke closes the distance between them and crushes her lips to his. His mouth moves with hers almost immediately, their arms reaching around and holding on to each other as if scared they'll float away. The warmth from Clarke's kisses is almost enough to forget that he's still getting wet by the rain, even though she's now getting drenched too. A few seconds later and Clarke pulls away to look up at him. He smiles down at her. And then sneezes.

"Oh my god, you're going to get sick," she says worriedly, grabbing his hand and pulling them both into the doorway. He's still shivering, but it's not so much the cold anymore as the feeling of her hand in his once more.

"W-Worth it," he replies, grinning. "I got you back, that's all that matters to me."

Clarke smiles and pulls him towards her for another kiss.


End file.
